


You Can't Take This Ship From Me

by Leonawriter



Category: Cabin Pressure, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Jedi, MJN Air Is A Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5007928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone asked, they weren't Rebels. Nor were they smugglers. Although that might just be for the benefit of how what Arthur didn't know couldn't hurt anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Take This Ship From Me

**Author's Note:**

> What was originally supposed to be one short oneshot ended up as each of the crew wanting to say their bit, and adding onto their backstories as the fic went on. That said, I hope I didn't get anything wrong, and I hope you enjoy.

Carolyn could see them trying not to laugh too obviously on their way back from the deal. She couldn't exactly blame them - the ones they'd duped into an unfair trade-off this time had had it coming to them, and both Martin and Douglas had played off each other rather nicely.

No, she couldn't blame them. She just wished they'd put it off some more until they weren't so in the open. Maybe once they were back on  _Gertie_. Or taking off. Better yet, in hyperspace, where no one could hear them and they were too far away to have anyone assume they had anything to do with anything.

Technically,  _Gertie_ was perfectly legal. She was a trading freighter, old when the Empire was young, but still knocking around even so. They weren't smugglers, exactly, she wouldn't say  _that_ \- and definitely not in hearing range of Arthur, if they  _were_.

No, they were just one ship and its small crew, just big enough to carry passengers or cargo but not too much of either.

She sent Douglas one last reproving glare and started making her way through the hangar toward her precious ship.  _Her_ ship. No matter what that son of a Hutt Imperial ex-husband of hers might have had planned.

She didn't miss the way that several people suddenly tripped over, seemingly for no reason.

"Pilots," she snapped out once they were in and the ramp was up, "stop playing pranks and start doing your job for once."

She could have taken the controls herself and got them out of there even faster, but that was, after all, what pilots were for - flying her ship, so that she didn't have to. Besides, loath as she was to admit it, even Martin was better at flying than she was. If it was up to her, she'd constantly be setting the poor ship on autopilot, trusting only to the navcomputers to know where they were going. Not a good course of action, that - which was what had made her decide to hire the best of the worst.

Arthur, as always, stayed in the cockpit while they took off, the joy of leaving the ground never having fully left the boy, and nor would the fact that they could travel the stars, and he always would find something magical about being in hyperspace. Even after all this time.

She wished, not for the first or last time, that her boy had been born a few decades ago, along with the rest of them. They were selfish thoughts, perhaps, but Carolyn Knapp-Shappey was no Jedi, and even as surrounded by them as she was, she couldn't quite bring herself to care for what  _Jedi_ would think of a desperate, hidden away and sometimes despairing  _need_ to see freedom again in her lifetime, freedom without war.

Peace was something that Arthur had never known, she sometimes thought to herself, thinking of the Clone Wars and the number of times she and Arthur had made quite the team manning the turrets just to stay alive. She always cursed life for that. 

...

Douglas didn't talk much, about life before  _Gertie_. And Martin might be a defected Imperial, but even  _he_ knew better than to pry. 

Martin's own life had been hard enough. Born enough years before the start of the Empire that he vaguely remembered what the Republic had been, that there had  _been_ a Republic, but not long enough, in many ways. 

He supposed - or so he thought when feeling morbid - that the fact that he'd been born during a time of such upheaval had been a good thing. It meant that there were so few Jedi roaming the galaxy that one Mid-Rim worlder who hadn't actually wanted anything other than to fly hadn't got a look in. 

A good thing, he told himself years later.  _A good thing_. Because he'd heard of the purges, he'd heard of Order 66. He'd heard of things, and had woken up sweating in the middle of the night far too many times at the academy, from dreams where that had been  _him_. 

He'd attended the Imperial Academy because that was what he'd always wanted - to become a pilot for the Republic. To learn to  _fly_. He wouldn't be much use in a fighter, no, but there were other uses other than just pushing datapads all the rest of his life.

Sometimes he wondered what his mum and his brother and his sister would think of him now. Hardly the Imperial Officer they'd been dreaming of. But then, he should have known that it wouldn't last. That he couldn't just  _ignore_  his Force sensitivity and hope it'd go away. One floating mug of caff and he'd carefully withdrawn. As though he'd simply decided that it was just too tough, too expensive. It was hardly as though anyone would argue, with his scores.

Now, though - 

His hands flew across the controls with the ease of experience gained not through training, but by practice, and the gentle guidance of the Force telling his hands were to be next. He felt the ship lift as the engines fired, leaving the battered old spaceport behind.

For a moment, he felt weightless. He felt freedom.

"So," he said, into the familiar quiet. There was the sound of the engines and the warm feeling of the others, and Arthur putting the kettle on in the galley, but that was it. Home. "Where to next? Or is that not decided yet?"

"I have a contact in the Barutte system," Carolyn said smoothly. "They confirmed that they've got a shipment ready if we can be there in a week. Which is fortunate, given it takes a little under that to get there."

And with that she was gone again, supposedly to make sure Arthur wasn't performing accidental science experiments on the tea-making equipment - or worse yet, making things float. The last thing they needed was another cup or plate smashed because the boy's - young man's, really - concentration and focus weren't worth sand on Tatooine.

...

A few weeks later found the crew with passengers instead of cargo, and Arthur assigned to ensure that they didn't get under the feet or in the way of the pilots - or Carolyn - during the trip. Which shouldn't be long. As long as nothing went wrong with Douglas or Martin or  _Gertie_ , that was.

There were few things that Arthur was good at keeping quiet about. Very few at all. Currently he was being very  _not_ quiet about hyperspace, and how it was brilliant, wasn't it, how it was basically another dimension entirely, and weren't the stars pretty when you looked out the windows?

The lady, all nice and proper and rich enough to afford the trip and get past all sorts of securities but without that snobbish air that some of their passengers had, was nodding and smiling. She wasn't really looking out of the windows, though, even when she could see them, and sometimes she looked a little bit green.

Not that there was anything wrong with people looking green! Plenty of species were green! Some Twi'lek were. They were brilliant.  It was just not as brilliant when people weren't supposed to be green looked like they were turning that colour.

When he realised that things had slowed down to an uncomfortable quiet again, he went to make tea. Tea always helped people when they weren't feeling well - and there was the fact that his head kept itching. 

He didn't mind the itch. He even knew what it was. It was Douglas and Martin. 

He hadn't been trained much. Just enough that he could - usually - know when he was floating things, and how to stop, and how to make himself seem really  _small_ , and not by looking with their eyes. Past that, and he wasn't strong enough. He knew that. And he didn't mind, either. 

Besides. Martin made things look so easy! When he wasn't panicking over one thing or another, that is. Or going red in the face from embarrassment, or blushing, or- 

Well. When it came to  _other_ things, Martin was good. He really was. 

And right now-

Mum was in her cabin, resting. Douglas and Martin were meditating. Best not to disturb them for a while.

Arthur smiled at an idea that he thought might well work, and started searching among the crew's hold area, a bit of a ways away from where they stowed the passengers' hand luggage while in flight.

 _Board games and holos! Brilliant!_ And if they didn't help, then there was always charades.

...

"Martin!"

The boy's anger - and yes, he  _would_ call Martin a boy, because he  _acted_ like one, damn him to hell - was darkening the atmosphere of the room, rattling anything not fixed down. If he hadn't known better, he might have been shocked at how much potential the uptight young redhead's temper had for destruction, when called upon.

Fortunately for the crew of  _Gerti_ _e,_ for all of them, should the Imperials hear of this, this was an area prone to earthquakes. And more than that, the others present were either already aware of who and what Martin was and didn't care, or just weren't paying attention.

That, and the good wallop around the ear Douglas gave him put a stop to that nonsense before it had a chance to fully take off.

"Ow- Douglas, what was  _that_ for?"

 _In his thirties,_ the older pilot mused,  _and still as prideful and stubborn as any padawan still left unchosen when all the others had gone._

_Then again, the Temple would have driven a lot of that out of him. Moulded him into the perfect little Jedi. I'm not sure whether that would have been better - or worse._

"What? Oh, sorry. Thought I saw a flitter. Accidents happen,  _Captain_."

Not daring anything more direct than a light emotive tap with the suggestion of  _beware that anger_ , he raised an eyebrow.

Martin couldn't be seen to be suddenly calm after a storm of emotion. Something like that would be suspect, and gain unwanted attention, even if for no other reason that it didn't fit what anyone knew of  _Martin_.

Martin, Douglas realised with, he knew, somewhat bitter feelings, had that freedom. The freedom to  _feel_. To be angry, or scared, or happy. To be  _attached_.

He didn't think the boy knew quite how much that was worth.

Douglas knew. Douglas  _remembered_.

_Growing up, no parents, no family, only the other younglings, all a class of their own. Some had gone sooner, some later, but all had known what would happen should they be chosen by a master - or not._

_F_ _or most, it was enough. More than enough, to live by the code, even in such years as those, young as they were and yearning for something more than just something safe and home, for something that had been taken from them (that they had been taken from) so very long ago._

_Fighting, afraid, and pretending that he was not, because to be or appear afraid would cause his master to worry, and that wouldn't do, not at all._

_Forming attachment after attachment - Force, did he try not to! - and it was only harder when he was told to take a padawan himself, and as he taught her, it was almost as if he were seeing a slight reflection of himself in another person, and if he had wondered and wished before, it was nothing to how he had felt then._

_Bonds that would all be shattered by time, or distance, or the shocking tear of death and absence that wanted to take him with it in his grief that, each time, he had to show no sign of, not to its fullest extent._

_Surviving through the blaster fire and the only sanctuary was when he was safely encapsulated by his ship, his starfighter, his own. He wasn't the best - that went to others, to Kenobi, and to Skywalker. He wasn't a legend. Jedi, he was told time and again, were not supposed to become legends._

_Felt the universe tremble and shudder as Jedi after Jedi fell. Fell, to blaster bolts from their own comrades. Fell, to 'saber strikes - from their own. Felt this, as he slept in a soft bed with clonetroopers nearby but not close enough to kill him as soon as the Order was issued. Dreams and visions instead giving him the warning needed to run, to hide, to go underground, always wondering what would have been of him if he had not treated the Code so loosely, not allowed his emotions to rule his head - yet again._

_He should have died, that day. Fate or the Force had decreed that he would not, yet._

The ability to talk his way out of almost any kind of situation, weasel his way into the best deals, the best food - any food - the parts he needed, something to trade for. It hadn't just come out of thin air. 

Though it seemed they always would be coming in handy. Especially when he'd accidentally ended up training the new (younger) Captain.

He could still remember it, clearly.

Martin, in the grip of night terrors in the first few weeks on board, anything not nailed down flying around the cabin. 

Arthur was as bright as any of the Masters he'd encountered, yes, but as untrained as a young padawan. And with as much skill.

Him, as the only one who'd been able to do anything to calm the Forse sensitive Captain, with Carolyn muttering something about having hired one pilot to draw attention away from the other, and now it turned out they were both trouble. 

Martin's face, on awakening, realising what had happened and the  _panic_ that had settled in, had been his downfall. The boy had looked too much like a startled youngling, despite his years, afraid that he would be handed over to the Empire.

"Ow," Martin was saying now, as Carolyn dabbed at his bruises after the business was all done with. One didn't threaten an Imperial's son and get away without a scratch, after all, even if they  _had_ insulted you first.

"And what do we learn from this, then?"

Martin blinked, his co-pilot undergoing the odd transition from someone to whom orders were given, to someone from whom lessons were learned, whether he liked it or not.  _  
_

"Er..." Sky-blue eyes tried to look down at the ship's floor, but Carolyn forced him to stay still, or suffer the consequences. "Don't let... anger cloud my judgement?"

Douglas considered it. If he said yes, then Martin would take it to heart. But he could see the slight quirk of the mouth that suggested that Carolyn, despite herself, was trying not to  _smile_.

"Well," he said, slowly, "I was actually thinking more along the lines of 'next time, take your victories where you can and don't get caught', but I'll take that too."

Martin goggled, tried to shake his head, and realised why that was a bad idea in no time at all, likely thinking of how that wasn't a very Jedi way of thinking, or the such.

But that was all right. Douglas never  _had_ been a very good Jedi. And aside from the ones he'd gathered around him, the Jedi were all gone now, anyway. He ( _they_ , something whispered deep inside of him, _they_ ) were all that was left.


End file.
